Teachers’ pet gripe is in the hip pocket

Christine Cawsey, the principal of Rooty Hill High School in Sydney’s west, is an outspoken advocate for higher professional standards for teaching. She says that in the Western countries that do the best in the world, Finland and Canada, teaching is the best paid profession in the country.
Photo: Wolter Peeters

Life as a young teacher isn’t half bad. On average, a graduate will earn more than a lawyer, accountant or computer scientist in their first year in the job. Guaranteed annual pay rises will probably keep the teacher ahead for the next few years, too.

But within a decade or so the teacher’s earning capacity, should he or she decide to remain in the classroom rather shoot for principal, will hit a ceiling. The others, meanwhile, will enjoy the prospect of a lifetime of salary growth leading to generous six-figure pay packets.

In NSW, where the state government is spruiking a shake-up of pay structures for teachers, graduates of four-year education degrees $56,829 last year. The top rate for a classroom teacher was just shy of $85,000.

Assistant principals and head teachers earn a base salary of $97,543 and primary and secondary deputy principals earn $113,889. A principal of a large high school earns up to $145,675.

AFR
AFR

Sure, some people in other jobs are paid much less, but many perceive the role of a teacher is as crucial as that of higher paid professions.

As one submission to the Productivity Commission’s current inquiry into the schools workforce argues: “The education of our youth is singularly the most important factor in securing Australia’s future, sustainability and growth".

But state and territory authorities are attempting to modernise teacher career structures, as is the federal government. Pay rises linked more closely to years in service than rigorous performance appraisals have been the norm in Australian education systems.

Over the weekend, NSW Premier
Barry O’Farrell
announced that the state government schools sector would in future years base salary progression on standards and ability.

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Much of the detail is still missing, but the standards will be developed in association with “key stakeholders" for “progressive" implementation. The changes will occur along with a shift of some power over budgets and staffing away from the education department into the hands of principals, as schools become more responsible for their own operation.

Christine Cawsey, the principal of Rooty Hill High School in Sydney’s west and head of the Australian Secondary Principals Association, says although teachers are often motivated by things other than money, they deserve to be rewarded.

“To say money doesn’t matter isn’t true," she says. “A quality professional salary that recognises the complexity of professional work, that sounds quite reasonable to me. In the Western countries that do the best in the world, Finland and Canada, teaching is the best paid profession in the whole country."

Indeed, the quality of Australia’s education system and, by extension the country’s competitiveness, is on the minds of many, including the federal government.

Not only is the Productivity Commission examining the schools workforce, the government-commissioned Gonski review of schools education, released publicly in February, acknowledged the core role of quality teaching in improving student performance.

Professional standards, bonuses for top performers and providing schools with greater autonomy are priorities for the Gillard government.

In fact, what is happening in NSW reflects the state’s delivery on reforms it agreed with the commonwealth in exchange for $12.5million, and federal Schools Minister
Peter Garrett
was “disappointed" the O’Farrell government’s announcement at the weekend did not acknowledge the commonwealth’s role.

National professional standards will come into force from 2013.

The standards describe the professional knowledge, practice and engagement expected of teachers throughout their career pathway over four levels of a career – graduate, proficient, highly accomplished and lead.

Teachers will be able to opt in to be assessed as highly accomplished or lead, with the federal government to pay bonuses.

Implementation of the professional standards is in line with recommendations by a report commissioned by the Business Council of Australia in 2008.

Authored by leading educational researcher Stephen Dinham, the report said the top classroom teachers should be earning as much as $130,000, clearly a lot more than they do now. Dinham says teacher pay should be linked to the new national professional standards.

“We need to restructure our salary career structures because they are archaic and they are what I call 19th century industrial artefacts," Dinham tells The AFR.

“What happens is the beginning teacher salaries are reasonable. They’re comparable to what accountants and pharmacists and various other people get. The problem is you’ve lock-step annual progression until people have been teaching for about 10 years and then the salaries plateau.

“There is no financial incentive to stay in the classroom or to improve your quality of teaching."

There has been much criticism about the lowering of entry scores for those entering university teaching degrees.

Attracting graduates of law, business and science into the profession is something programs like Teach for Australia and Teach Next have tried to do.

Non-profit Teach for Australia is based on similar programs in the United States and Britain. Forty candidates entered the program this year. They will complete a six-week course at the University of Melbourne’s Graduate School of Education before spending 18 months in a classroom under the supervision of a mentor teacher.

Application rates are high at about 800 a year for 100 or so places. But some candidates do turn the offers down and Teach for Australia says the main reason is that graduates accept a competing employment offer.

“In elaborating on their reasons for declining participation . . . candidates cited higher starting salaries in other industries and a perceived lack of prestige and a lock of professional and career development opportunities," the organisation says in its submission.

Other industries also offer higher salaries for people with maths and science skills, luring trained teachers away with higher salaries. “Some candidates reveal job offers of as much as $83,000."

The NSW system will not include one-off bonuses. Nor does the Productivity Commission believe the commonwealth should go ahead with its bonus scheme.

The commission's draft report also pointed to the limited potential for advanced skill teacher positions, as some states have introduced. These are teachers who have been assessed to have high level skills, but in NSW at least it’s more of a pat on the back than a salary boost.

“This is particularly evident in the NSW government school system, where only 118 people had been appointed to a highly accomplished teacher position by late 2010, compared to a permanent teaching staff of around 49,000," the draft report slays.

“In contrast, the Victorian education department aims to maintain around 10 to 15 per cent of full-time teaching staff in a leading teacher position.

“Nevertheless, the AST positions currently available across jurisdictions and sectors fall well short of a performance-based career path where teachers can progress through several classification levels on the basis of merit and the availability of a position."

Brisbane Grammar School principal Amanda Bell agreed the starting salaries for new graduates compared to some other industries “aren’t too bad at all" and there were many reasons a person might choose to teach.

“A lot of people don’t go into teaching for the money. They go in because they actually love what they do. That doesn’t mean you don’t pay them appropriately," she said.